Bissett Bullet: Find Common Ground
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “When it comes to meeting with a prospective client for the first time, there is only one way to approach the conversation. As a fellow business owner and human being.”
By Martin Bissett
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It’s Not Selling, It’s Service
Have you thought about what you’re building?
By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget
Being a successful person according to your own measurement of that, and your own goals and your own standards is different for everyone.
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If you’re comfortable with yourself, it’s very likely that others will be too. If you understand the value that you offer (how you can improve a client’s situation to move them closer toward their personal and professional aspirations), you’re likely to be able to convey that value in front of a prospect.
Bissett Bullet: Expertise Is Too Valuable to be Given Away for Free
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “When we can listen to our prospective client’s issues without giving away all the answers in our replies, we’ve got a chance of winning work.”
By Martin Bissett
It’s one of the hardest things to do in a professional selling situation. We want to oust the current accountant, we want to explain why we are a better choice and we want to demonstrate that we can solve their problems, but loyalty is a demanding mistress.
In the same way that our proposal should include the “what” not the “how,” we must appreciate that when we tell our prospective clients how to go about fixing their issues before we have their signature on a payment plan, we’re simply encouraging them to go back to their existing accountants and save themselves the pain of change.
Today’s To-Do:
Practice advising the prospective client “what” can be done to help them but not “how.”
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Get Your Personal House in Order
Eight questions to ask yourself.
By Martin Bissett
Winning Your First Client
You know the identity of your first client, and if you buy into you, then there’s a good chance of potential clients being prepared to do so, too.
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This is what we must remember about the purchasing of professional services such as accounting. If your prospective client is a Grade A or B style opportunity for your firm, then they are not buying the services you provide per se. The services are the vehicles of delivery; the means to the end.
The client is buying the relationship, and they are asking themselves:
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Bissett Bullet: Who Should I Say is Calling?
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Imagine you’re a business owner and you’ve just had a meeting with an accounting firm. The meeting went really well; in fact they made a very positive first impression and you are seriously considering leaving your current accountant to work with them. You did forget to ask something, so you make a quick call to their office … and nobody knows who you are.”
By Martin Bissett
You could be forgiven for feeling a little deflated. Now imagine you called and instead were greeted by a member of their support team who not only knew exactly who you are but had been instructed to put you straight through should you happen to call.
This is a very easy and effective way to make prospective clients feel valued, prioritized and ingrained in your firm’s culture but simple though it is, your competitors will not do it. Stand out by making sure that clients are handled in this way by your firm.
Today’s To-Do:
Diarize time after a meeting or set aside time each week to brief support staff on all prospective clients.
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Believe in Yourself to Sell
Perception, even your own, is reality.
By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget
“No man has the ability to step outside of the shadow of his own character.” – Robespierre
As far as our potential clients are concerned, how they perceive us is how we really are to them, regardless of the truth of the matter.
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Because of this, it’s important to realize that when we are meeting a new potential client who has not been referred to us, it does not matter what the reality of our value proposition is; it matters how that potential client perceives our value proposition. Therefore, to be effective in winning work, we must understand how we can positively influence their perception of us at each stage of the relationship-building process.
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Personal Accountability Moves You Forward
Eight questions to ask yourself.
By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget
The secret to overcoming failure to correctly implement a successful business development strategy is by “winning your first client” and this starts by being accountable to someone for your performance.
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Now that “someone” may be your fellow partners in the firm. If you are a senior manager, that may be the partner to whom you report.
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Bissett Bullet: There’s No ‘I’ in Team
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “All it takes for an accounting practice to stagnate is capable, talented partners to take up a position of ‘my clients,’ ‘my fees.’”
By Martin Bissett
How often have we heard about a multipartner practice simply being a selection of sole practitioners operating under a common brand? So many accounting firms operate from silos, never really looking above to see what is going on anywhere else. So, as soon as it becomes “my clients and my fees” rather than “our clients, the firm’s fees,” then you can be sure the practice is on a slow steady decline.
Today’s To-Do:
If you ever catch yourself or one of your colleagues talking about “my clients, my fees,” remind them that they are a “partner in a practice” and that they are working for the good of the whole, not solely the good of the individual.
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Why Do You Want to Be Partner?
Our expert council weighs in on preparation.
By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership
The skill in producing financial reports is limited by the quality of the information presented to the CPA by the client. The motivation of the client to influence that financial information comes in many forms, some intentional and some unintentional. Competence comes first in being able to resist pressure and present a true and accurate position of the client’s organization.
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Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But there’s a twist.
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Bissett Bullet: The Emotional Argument
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “When a prospective client already has an accountant, it is important to recognize that although they are demonstrating an interest in working with you by agreeing to meet, there will be a degree of loyalty to the current firm even if they’ve identified the need for change.”
By Martin Bissett
This is important because it places them out of their comfort zone. They may feel apprehensive about severing ties and it may not be that the accountant is doing a bad job, simply that their business has grown past the point that the existing firm can continue to support them. Whatever the case, you won’t win an emotional argument with logic.
Today’s To-Do:
Look at the next prospect meeting in your diary. What do you know about them already that will help you to speak to them in emotional terms? Select a story about how you helped a similar client that may resonate and have it in your armory.
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Are You Waiting for Business to Come to You?
Practice makes perfect.
By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget
Have you noticed all of those titles in the local bookstore or at the airport offering us the “key” to this and the “key” to that, the “six keys” to one thing, and the “four keys” to another?
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It also seems that every book is a “game-changer” now, to the point where it is difficult to understand what the game is anymore, never mind how to play it.
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Bissett Bullet: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “I’m a small firm. How can I possibly be perceived as ‘superior’ to the much larger firms that my prospective client is meeting?”
By Martin Bissett
There is a mindset shift needed here. “Superior” is not “bigger” so turnover, office size and number of partners bear no relevance.
You are superior when you show a genuine interest in the business you have gone to see and take the time to understand their personal and professional motivations. When you take that understanding and use your experience and your service lines to bring the answers to their door, that is being superior. Win the advisory war by becoming the best relationship builder firm, not the biggest firm.
Today’s To-Do:
Previously, I asked you to identify three clients who had come to you having been dissatisfied with their experience with their previous accountant. Were any of those firms larger than yours? What about the previous firms of other clients whose situations you have improved? When imposter syndrome creeps in, remember those clients.
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Project Confidence to Potential Clients
What is your first impression?
By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget
Winning your first client is all about understanding why someone would buy from you before you ever speak to them, before you ever meet them, before you ever start the preparation for talking to them.
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This discipline too often goes unexplained by most sales training programs offered to the accounting profession, but ultimately we have to be comfortable with who we are and the value that we offer.
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